Condoleezza Rice and the weird world of foreign affairs

Muammar Gaddafi’s much publicized crush on Condoleezza Rice wasn’t the only strange enounter she had with a world leader while serving in the White House.

The Los Angeles Times relates several other odd enounters, as detailed in her new book on her years as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State:

• When she met then-Lebanese President Emile Lahoud in 2005, he “had been dressed in a mustard-colored suit that only highlighted his almost cartoonish artificial tan. After I shook his hand, I felt like I needed a shower.”

• Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah presented her with a gift. “I opened the package and realized that it was … the black robe and veil Saudi women traditionally wear,” Rice wrote. “‘I had it made especially for you,’ he said tenderly. ‘Our women wear them.’ Yes, as a sign of oppression, I thought. But it was so dear, and he meant well.”

• Her meeting with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir in 1995 was “a truly weird scene.”
“Bashir spoke slowly, moving his head back and forth, from side to side,” Rice wrote. “He looked as though he was on drugs.”

As for Gaddafi, Rice says he “wasn’t totally sane.” She also recounts a trip to China with President George W. Bush in which Vice-President Dick Cheney called to warn them they might be about to die from botulism poisoning, agrees the war in Iraq might have been less costly if there had been less infighting between her, Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and says Bush should get credit for inspiring the Arab Spring.